The World as it Was
by Murgsy
Summary: With enemies at home and with Vlad performing twisted experiments on an old foe, Danny’s future looks dark. Forced to survive amidst new threats, and with his parents’ experiments revealing power he never knew he had, Danny is forced to adapt or lose everything he ever knew.
1. 1

Prologue

Fire rained down from the sky, burying the world in ashes and smoke. Danny shielded his face with his battered, filthy arms as the world slowly crumbled.

He hadn't wanted this.

The rumbling beneath the city streets erupted into a roar as great gouts of blue-green flame arced skywards, bathing everything in a harsh, otherworldly glow. He curled farther under a jutting piece of concrete, debris narrowly missing hitting his exposed leg.

He had to do something.

A sickly, green, glowing puddle dripped through the cracks in the pavement and mixed with the ash. Swirls of red twirled lazily through the hazy sheen, originating from the worryingly large chunk of flesh missing from his calf.

It was gonna suck to walk.

But there wasn't much of a choice, now, was there?

Danny got to his feet, swaying slightly, but his eyes were determined.

This was his city. He'd be damned before he'd let it get destroyed.

_1_

The harsh chime of the school bell rang out suddenly, cutting through Danny's fitful nap and jolting him into consciousness. Sam tapped his shoulder gently as she gathered her things and headed for the door.

"Come on, sleepyhead," She smiled, swinging her purple spider backpack around and against her shoulder. Outside, the noise of students talking and slamming lockers rose to a roar as the kids prepared to go home for the day. Danny stretched stiffly, still sore from his most recent ghost fight, and nodded drowsily. Tucker walked past and smacked the back of Danny's head playfully.

"Geez, man, when's the last time you slept? You look awful,he grinned. Mr. Lancer shot a concerned glance in their direction, which the trio pretended not to notice. Tucker's smirk widened. "You almost look half dead."

"Aw, shut up, Tuck," Danny groaned, smiling, as the three pushed out into the chaos of the hallway. The familiar and unwelcome silhouette of Dash Baxter could be seen just down the hall, so the three quickly scurried in the opposite direction. As they rounded the corner towards the exit, Danny glanced back over his shoulder. "Is it just me, or does Dash look uglier than usual? Maybe it's the sleep deprivation, I dunno," Danny mused. Sam snorted.

"We should classify him as a whole new species at this point. There's no way a human being could be that unlikeable," Sam pushed the double doors open wide and glared into the bright, mid afternoon sun. "Ugh. This summer is going to be the death of me. My parents say it's supposed to be record-breakingly hot or something. I'll probably catch fire at this rate."

Tucker shot Sam a questioning glance. "I thought you said Goths simmer? What ever happened to that?" Sam glared at him, snatching his hat before abruptly plopping it on her own head. "Hey!" Tucker shouted, making a grab at it as Sam skipped nimbly away, laughing. Danny smiled, rolling his eyes, as his best friends squabbled.

A sudden chill raced through his being, cancelling out the heat of the sweltering spring day momentarily. Ice crackled through his veins for a split second as he shivered, breath coming out in a plume of cold vapor. Sam and Tucker stopped squabbling immediately as Danny groaned dramatically. They had heard that sound enough times to know that a ghost was nearby.

"I'll get the Fenton Thermos," Tucker sighed, rummaging through his backpack in resignation. "Sam, you wanna be on shooting or Thermos duty? I got the Thermos last time."

"Guys, it's okay," Danny said, waving them off as they began getting their ghost gear assembled. "I can handle this one. Take it easy." His friends exchanged a doubtful glance, and Tucker shrugged.

"You sure you can handle it, Danny? You don't look so good," Sam pushed gently. Danny subtly slid his bruised arm behind his back and waved them off again. It's true he was beat up, but Sam and Tucker had been working their butts off lately helping him with ghost catching, and he felt bad. It was probably just the Box Ghost again, anyways--nothing he couldn't handle.

"I'm fine, guys," Danny breezed, and snatched the Fenton Thermos from Tucker before he could object. "I'll probably catch up with you before you even get home. Besides," Danny gestured at Tucker's hat planted lopsidedly on Sam's head, "you guys were in the middle of some really important business." He laughed as Sam chucked the red beret at him. "Alright, okay," he returned the hat to Tucker after catching it deftly. "Relax. It's not like I'm not gonna die or anything. I'll see you in a few." He winked, waved, and started booking it towards the nearby porta potty.

Sam huffed something under her breath about a hero complex and rolling her eyes before grabbing Tucker's arm and stomping off. Tucker tried frantically to remove her hand from his arm, shouting that Sam was an abusive friend, before the two disappeared around the bend. Danny laughed quietly at their antics.

Danny slammed the porta potty door behind him, letting the familiar rings of energy arc over his body, changing raven hair to white, and blue eyes to an unnaturally luminous green. He stretched, swiftly checking his suit for any wear, before clipping the thermos to his belt and phasing through the roof invisibly. He soared upwards, enjoying the fresh air after a long, stifling day in the school, and scanned the nearby area for the ghost. Where could it be? His ghost sense went off again, making him shiver despite the hot sun.

An ectoblast arced past his ear with a harsh whine, startling him, and Danny instantly switched into defensive, throwing up a shield just as another blast zoomed towards him. Through the wiggly green glow, Danny spotted Skulker floating up to be on his level. His arm was outstretched and a new kind of ectogun smoked faintly on his wrist. Skulker smirked threateningly.

"Hello, whelp," Skulker crooned. His gun clicked and primed itself again with a sickening whirr, glowing a toxic yellow-green. "I hope you like my new toy!" The gun fired and Danny raised another shield, wincing as the powerful blast forced him back a few feet in the sky.

"Not in the mood for this today, Skulker," he growled, firing two quick arcs of green energy at his foe. His bruises twinged painfully, and Skulker noticed his stiffness with a keen eye, letting out a quiet hmph. Skulker dodged the blasts easily, powering up his rockets and flying swiftly towards Danny like a torpedo, catching him by surprise.

"Don't think I'll go easy on you, ghost child!" he crashed into Danny at full speed, holding tight, spiraling them downwards towards the football field. Danny struggled in the iron grasp, green eyes flaming, before firing an ectoblast directly into Skulker's face. He howled, releasing the startled halfa, before Danny abruptly slammed into the ground. With his breath knocked out of him, Danny lay stunned in the dirt, coughing painfully. He fumbled at his belt for the thermos, raising it shakily at the figure clutching his face nearby.

"Looks like you won't need to," Danny muttered, pressing the button with a dirt-stained finger. Skulker turned in shock just as the wide beam of light swept over him, trapping him in the thermos with a howl of rage. Danny capped the thermos with a resounding click, rubbing his face wearily. It hadn't been a long fight at all, but it sure as hell had hurt. He was grateful for his quick healing more than ever before as the sharp pain along his back slowly faded into a dull ache.

As Danny took a breather, the football team jogged out onto the field for practice, noticing with shock the stunned ghost and the large crater he was in. The teens shouted excitedly and pointed towards the faintly smoking hole, running towards him, and Danny yelped, turning invisible to escape his eager fans. It was nice to be appreciated, of course, but there were times that he just needed some space after a fight. The teens crowded in confusion around the seemingly empty crater, disappointed.

Danny rose slowly into the air, reclipping his thermos, before flying leisurely back towards his friends. Ducking momentarily into an alleyway, he changed back swiftly and popped out of the alley behind Tucker and Sam, visible once more, thumping his hands onto their shoulders and whispering "boo!" unexpectedly. Tucker yelped loudly and Sam turned to glare at him witheringly, unimpressed.

"That was fast," she muttered, shrugging Danny's hand off her shoulder as he wormed his way to walk between his friends. "Who was it?"

"Just Skulker, though he has some kind of new gun," Danny rubbed his aching shoulders and winced. Danny remembered the strange yellowish glow the weapon had produced. "It had some pretty funky looking ectoplasm, actually. Almost yellow." Tucker raised his eyebrow curiously, and he and Sam exchanged a questioning glance.

"I dunno if we've seen that color ectoplasm before. Did you notice anything else weird about it?" He asked, pulling out his PDA and looking through his stored ghost information for any clues. He sighed deeply. "I hope this doesn't make our lives harder," he whined, and Danny and Sam had to agree. It was one thing fighting the same ghosts day in, day out, but another thing entirely when they changed things up and caused even more of a problem. At least monotony was predictable, if exhausting.

"It only hit my shield, and it didn't seem to do much, besides pack a pretty powerful punch. I'm sure it's nothing," Danny breezed. "Nothing I can't handle." An unreadable look crossed Sam's face, before she frowned and looked away. Danny didn't seem to notice, but Tucker did, and looked uneasily between the two. It didn't take a genius to see something was bothering Sam lately, but Danny had been too caught up in his ghost fighting to notice. Sometimes Tucker wished Danny could get his head out of his ass enough to see that something he was doing was getting on Sam's nerves, but the guy never did. Tucker shook his head disapprovingly. What would he do with those two? Honestly.

*

Vlad whisked his way softly through the gloom and endless hum of the Ghost Zone. He was on the alert, eyes scanning the impossible landscape around him warily. A heavy metal cylinder was clutched tightly in his fist, reminiscent of a Fenton Thermos but obviously tinkered with, and detailed with fuschia accents rather than green. A small light blinked menacingly above a label that read "occupied," the contents rattling with angry energy.

He slowed suddenly, checking over his shoulders, before darting behind a floating mass of purplish debris near Skulker's lair. A small, plain purple door was wedged into the back of a large stone, which Vlad quickly slithered through. The other side of the portal came out into a large, empty cave that whistled with bitter mountain wind. He closed the now black door behind him firmly, clutching the thermos tightly under one arm. Few knew about his secret entrance to the Ghost Zone, and he intended to keep it that way.

A quick twenty minute flight at top speed, and he was once again home to his mansion hundreds of miles away in Wisconsin. Floating through walls and floors, he arrived in his high-tech lab, settling on the floor with a soft thump of his shoes and a faint whisper of his cape. The black rings of energy swept over his form, returning him to the familiar and intimidating form of Amity Park's mayor, Vlad Masters. A distinctly feline smirk crept across his face as he regarded the humming cylinder in his hands.

"At last..." he sighed, sauntering over to a bulky machine resting halfway in shadow towards the back of his laboratory. With a soft click, he inserted the thermos into a slot towards the front of the machine, and a loud buzzing filled the air as it whirred to life. Long fingers whipped over translucent keys as Vlad inputted instructions and data into the machine. His face creased in concentration and excitement as he worked, and with a triumphant flourish, he hit one final key with a resounding clunk. The buzzing of the machinery grew to a roar as a pod towards the middle of the machine lit up with a deep blue glow, filling with clear, bubbling liquid. A high pitched whine accompanied the formation of a high-powered ectoshield around the pod, glowing green and sending out sparks of other-dimensional energy. A dense greenish fog bubbled up through the liquid, forming into the rough shape of a human form accented with a pair of hateful red orbs that soon twisted into flaming red eyes and a furrowed brow. Slowly, painfully, the long restrained form of Dan Phantom took shape.

"Hello, Daniel... Or should I call you Dan?" Vlad purred, and the form within the pod contorted into a mask of fury, half formed arms beating against the thick, ghostproof glass with enough force to rattle the entire machine. "Feisty, are we?" Vlad hummed pleasantly, but his smirk was feral and devious. "Don't worry, you'll get your freedom soon enough, my boy. There's just something I need from you first." He snapped his fingers sharply and a glitchy holographic form appeared next to him.

"What is it, sweetie?" The Maddie hologram crooned in her echoing, robotic voice, and Vlad's smile softened.

"Be a dear and take some data down from this test subject, darling. I have some business I need to attend to." The hologram smiled emptily and chirped a sugar-coated response, and Vlad sauntered off to another part of the lab to prepare other equipment while his hologram tended to the containment unit. Vlad flicked through the musty pages of an ancient tome that had an ethereal glow to it, searching intently. Soon he found the page he had been seeking, and quickly skimmed the familiar words. Haunting drawings of leering demons and withering ghosts paraded on the page, surrounded by scrawls of nearly intelligible writing, all centering around a blue-clad figure wreathed in flames. Vlad's face contorted into a power-hungry smile that wouldn't be unusual if it appeared on the face of Satan himself. This is what he had been waiting for all along, and Vlad couldn't wait to start.

Those fools wouldn't know what hit them.

*

Danny collapsed into his bed at last, his whole body aching from the beating he had received during his nightly patrol. There had been an absurd amount of ghost activity that night for god knows what reason, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep for the next three days. His spaceship alarm clock read a bleary 3:14 am, and he groaned when he realized he would be lucky to get four hours of sleep that night. Why did superheroing have to be so hard? It was like every ghost in the world was out to get him, and he was sick of it. He rubbed his face with his hands and seriously considered destroying the Ghost Portal if only to give himself a little break while his parents rebuilt it. Although, to really get a break, he'd have to destroy Vlad's, too, and would have to watch for natural portals...

Danny flipped onto his stomach and buried his face in his pillow, groaning. Please, let that be the last of the ghosts for tonight, he thought weakly. I just want to sleep. The exhausted teen sighed, curled up, and drifted off into a fast and heavy slumber. He was lucky for once, and no more ghosts visited Amity Park that night.

A thin tendril of smoke wormed its way up through a crack in the ground, and curled fiendishly among the rubble sitting heavily where cars once drove. Pieces of Amity Park were suspended in midair, levitating like islands in a boiling red sea of clouds and fire. A silhouette, simultaneously familiar and entirely foreign to him, hovered in the distance with a halo of ghostly, cerulean wisps of energy surrounding it. It turned its head towards him, revealing long, elflike ears and a mane of fiery, feathery hair rippling behind it. Hateful crimson eyes pierced through the veil of smoke and made the distance between them seem suddenly all too claustrophobic; he knew without hesitation that he would die if he stayed where he was. He leapt out of the way just as the figure raised a hand, abruptly clenching it into a fist, but he was too slow--he screamed as a chunk of his calf was torn away, revealing the pulsing green flesh and ectoplasm beneath. Things had gone much, much more horribly than anyone had warned him they would. He hissed through his teeth as he fought the pain, attempting to lift into the sky to escape, but unable to as a force like gravity--but fluid and almost like honey surrounding him on all sides--held him down. He glanced furiously around, searching for another escape, and ducked behind a colossal piece of asphalt turned on its side. The swirling, honey-like force dissipated as the silhouette's line of sight was blocked from its target, and he settled into the ash, breathing deeply and trying to stem the bleeding. Calming breaths soon turned to panicked sobs, and he curled around himself as if he could hide from the whole world.

This was all so wrong.

So terribly, unimaginably wrong.


	2. 2

_2_

"Clockwork, I'm worried," Danny admitted, swinging his legs idly back and forth off the side of the girder he was perched on. The giant gears around him clattered and clicked peacefully, providing soothing background noise that did nothing to calm the anxious teen. The wise ghost below him half turned to peer up at his young charge, shifting from an adult to an old man in the process. He regarded Danny for a moment with a keen eye that revealed nothing, before he turned back to watching the multitude of screens that displayed alternate timelines.

"All is as it--" Clockwork began, but Danny interrupted.

"Don't pull that 'all is as it should be' crap on me, I know already!" Danny threw his hands up in frustration. "I just..." Danny struggled for words for a moment, before sighing heavily and putting his face in his hands. "I don't know... I'm sorry I snapped. I'm just so tired," he murmured defeatedly. "It just never ends! Day in, day out, every ghost in the Zone seems to show up at the most inconvenient time to beat me up, my grades are slipping, my family wants ghost-me dead, Valerie and Vlad are always on my tail, and what little sleep I was getting to begin with is being wrecked by these crazy nightmares!"

Clockwork chuckled softly and materialized next to Danny. "I've endured worse insults in my time, young one. I understand that you feel lost. You have no one who has experienced exactly what you're going through to relate to." His wise words and soothing aura were deeply appreciated by the somewhat frazzled halfa, and Danny cracked a tiny, melancholy smile. "I cannot offer you a simple solution, but you are always welcome to come here for advice. I cannot influence your future directly, but I would be glad to lead you in the right direction." Clockwork's usually stoic expression was now one of warmth and an almost parental affection, and the young ghost felt comforted and safe, if only for a moment. "I can assure you, things will not continue like this forever. After all, the future is never static."

"Thanks, Clockwork. I mean it." Danny smiled for real this time, green eyes twinkling, and the elder ghost shifted into a young child. He patted him softly on the shoulder and smiled back before materializing in front of his screens. Danny floated down from his perch to stand behind his unofficial mentor, peering over his shoulder to see the timelines Clockwork was watching over. It was mostly a lot of important events going on in the human realm, but there were a few scenes of the Ghost Zone, too. Danny watched curiously as what looked like a slightly older and slightly less acne-ridden Johnny 13 proposed to a less-punky version of Kitty. Johnny's usually scuffed boots were shined, and he was dressed well as he presented the ring to his beaming girlfriend. Kitty cried and wrapped her arms around him, joyfully accepting his proposal. Despite it being his two longtime enemies featured on the screen, Danny felt warm and fuzzy seeing them so happy. He hadn't realized ghosts got married or had weddings--it just hadn't ever occurred to him to find out. He realized he still had a lot to learn about the Ghost Zone's customs and culture.

Clockwork noticed him watching and smiled a knowing smile, becoming an adult once more. Something about the young halfa's enthusiasm and interest in the Ghost Zone had given him a soft spot for the bullheaded teen, and he hoped one day to offer to become his mentor. He knew, however, that Danny wasn't ready yet. Not quite. There was much to do and much to learn before that point arrived. He slid his eyes towards the door to his tower, knowing that in a moment Sam and Tucker would burst in and demand to know where Danny was, and exactly as predicted, the aforementioned teens arrived in a huff.

"Danny!" Sam shouted as the colossal doors opened wildly, hair a mess, clothing disheveled, stomping over to him in her heavy combat boots and completely disregarding Clockwork. He yelped and tried to hide behind Clockwork's bulky chair, but he had already been spotted. "Where have you been? We've been looking all over for you!" She growled, and Tucker trotted up behind her, out of breath, very pissed, with the booomerang in his fist. Clockwork folded his hands stoically in his lap and watched the drama unfold silently with a small smirk. "Your sister has been going nuts and driving us crazy for hours now! She demanded we get our butts in gear and hunt you down. She's acting like you've been gone for weeks!" She grabbed the front of Danny's suit and dragged his tiny frame towards the door.

"Guys! I'm sorry!" Danny yelled, struggling as Tucker pitched in and grabbed his arm.

"Sorry doesn't cut it, dude," Tucker snorted. "Your sister's a force of nature." Danny glanced desperately toward Clockwork for help, but he only gave a small wave before turning back to his screens. Danny groaned as his friends bustled him into the Specter Speeder.

Clockwork chuckled, watching them fly off with hooded eyes. "Take good care of them, Daniel," he murmured. "They are your strongest weapon." His face fell abruptly and he considered a timeline playing on his largest screen. The young halfa would need all the support he could get if the vision he was seeing remained true. He shook his head sadly. He couldn't shelter the boy for much longer.

*

"I told you I was going to see Clockwork!" Danny repeated for the eighth time as Jazz glared at him from across the living room. Thumps, drilling noises, and the occasional muffled curse could be heard in the lab below as their parents tinkered aggressively with the newest device they were trying to perfect, and the siblings were relieved to be able to talk freely under the cover of the noise. Sam and Tucker sat at the kitchen table angrily eating the fudge Danny had given them as an apology for what Jazz had put them through. Jazz let out a peeved puff of air, swinging her long, coppery hair over her shoulder dramatically to glare at her little brother.

"Didn't you know how worried I was?" She protested. "You were gone all day without your cell phone! I thought you'd been kidnapped!" Danny cast her a withering glance, unimpressed.

"I clearly remember telling you where I was going and for how long! It's not my fault you didn't remember. My phone was dead so there was no point bringing it!" He huffed. "And why are you so worked up about it? Honestly, you're more of a mother hen than Mom!"

Jazz gaped at him in disbelief. "Well someone has to keep an eye on you!" She squawked.

"I can take care of myself!"

"No you can't! You're fourteen and have countless powerful ghost enemies. Do you know how worrying that is?"

"You think I'm not aware of that?! And I was handling things just fine before you butted in, you know. I had things under control for months before you even found out."

Sam's head whipped around to glare at Danny.

"So what?! I'm your big sister! It's my job to protect you!" Jazz threw her hands up in exasperation.

Sam cut in from her place across the room. "Hey! We can protect him just as well as you can, Jazz!" Her violet eyes flashed angrily. "And don't drag us into some crazy goose chase if you knew where he was all along! Our lives are crazy enough as it is without you telling us Danny's been kidnapped or whatever."

Jazz stood angrily. "I told you, I didn't know where he was! I'm sorry I care enough about my brother to try to find out what happened to him."

Danny put his face in his hands. "I'll say it again, I told you last night where I was going. Can we please be done arguing? What more do you want from me?!"

Both Sam and Jazz turned to him with fiery eyes. "No." They growled at the same time, then immediately glared at each other. Danny sent a panicked glance over at Tucker, who was calmly eating his fudge and messing with his PDA with a bored expression. Sam and Jazz started revving up for a big shouting match, and Danny prepared for the onslaught.

Like a miracle sent to save Danny, Jack Fenton marched up the stairs at that exact moment to witness his daughter and his son's best friend both pointing furiously at Danny and shouting unintelligibly. He stood dumbfounded in the kitchen for a moment before scurrying over to break it up.

"Jazzy! Sam! What's going on?" he boomed, his massive voice carrying over top of their arguing. Sam shut her mouth with a final snap and stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind her. Jazz stared blankly after her, mouth wide and eyes furious. Danny was a startled scrap huddled on the couch. Tucker was finishing up his fudge casually. Jack was perplexed.

"What happened up here?" Jack blinked, reaching for Sam's unfinished fudge. Tucker squawked sadly as the fudge was taken. Jazz huffed loudly and sat opposite Danny once more, and Danny let out a shaky breath.

"It's nothing, dad," Jazz said icily. "We're fine."

Jazz was absolutely not fine.

Danny glanced anxiously at the window, watching Sam's slowly diminishing form, and felt a pang of guilt. Somehow his plans for a day to get advice and reassurance from Clockwork had backfired immensely, and now things between Sam and Jazz had gotten worse. Just great.

Jack cast Jazz a questioning look, taking in her flushed face and tense posture, and decided it would be safest not to comment. Tucker finished his last bite of fudge before standing quietly and heading to the door. "I'd better check on Sam," he said pointedly, glancing at Danny, and slipped out before anyone could say anything. Tense silence fell over the living room and Danny huddled in the middle of it dejectedly. Jack finally cleared his throat and did what he did best in tense situations: changed the subject as quickly as he could to talk about ghosts.

"Uh... Kids, your mom and I have this great new idea for a ghost-fighting weapon! It's still in its early stages, but when its done we hope it will be able to make ghosts to become docile and non-aggressive towards humans. Ya know, less... Murdery. Once we use the Specter Subjugator on the nasty spooks, they should be easy to catch and study! How does that sound?" Jack boomed enthusiastically, waving his arms about. Danny felt queasy, knowing that the device was likely to do something far nastier on accident. He just hoped they wouldn't try testing it on his alter ego.

Jazz, still fuming, turned her glare towards Jack. "Can't you give ghosts a rest for one minute? I don't want to hear how you and mom are planning to torment innocent creatures!" She snapped, standing in a huff and storming off to her room. The slam of her door as she stomped into her room echoed throughout the whole house.

Jack reached out after her weakly. "Jazzie," he murmured, looking shocked. Jack had noticed their eldest child hadn't been overly enthusiastic about ghosts over the years, but lately she had been very vocal in voicing her views against the family business. Jack hardly knew what to think. It was like she thought ghosts were something more than just scraps of post-mortem consciousness. At least Danny had always had a bit of patience with their business, but Jack realised that his son, too, had been weird about the subject lately. It was like he got queasy whenever he or Maddie mentioned their latest weapons. Determined to continue the family business, Jack considered offering to show Danny his newest invention in an attempt to spark his interest in ghosts. When he turned to ask Danny, however, he had disappeared.

Jack was always surprised by how quiet the smallest Fenton could be.

*

Danny whisked through the pleasant spring air at top speed, trying to shake off his gloom after all the shouting. The sun rode low in the Western sky, and he wondered what phase the moon was in. It had been so long since he'd had time to stargaze.

Icy breath wormed its way out from between his lips, and he slowed, sighing, as he readied for yet another ghost attack. Couldn't he have just a few minutes of peace? Shrill shrieks and a rushing green form told him that no, he couldn't. Danny whirled and threw up a shield just as a low level entity crashed full force into him, screaming bloody murder. Danny fumbled at his belt for the thermos while it was stunned, and realized with a sinking feeling that he must have left it somewhere at home during the argument. A brief memory of setting it next to the fudge crossed his mind, and he cursed himself for being so stupid.

The blob screamed again, making Danny wince, and it darted around the edge of the shield as Danny prepared to do things the old fashioned way. Dodging nimbly out of the way, he prepared an ectoblast in one hand, letting it charge up into a volatile sphere the size of a beach ball before slinging it into the ghost with a lackluster cry of "catch!" Not his best quip, for sure; it had been a long day, and Danny was in no mood to be clever.

The ghost didn't have time to be disappointed in the young hero's wit, thankfully. It received the blast head on and was dispersed into millions of tiny droplets of glowing green goo. Danny was relieved when the thing slunk into the shadows of the town below to reform itself and lick its wounds. He shook off the feeling of twitchy energy that always came with ghost battles and decided it would be best if he went and got the thermos after all.

Drifting towards home yet again, Danny closed his eyes and let the wind wash over him, wishing it would take his troubles with it. Things had been just so messed up lately. He was growing distant from his parents, he was failing three classes, he had hardly slept in months, Tucker and Sam had been mad at him for all sorts of things, and Jazz had been really weird lately about his ghost fighting. It was all too much at times, and he wished he could just forget about one side or the other, but he couldn't imagine his life without his role as Phantom and knew he had to keep on going somehow. He just wished things could be easy for once. He furrowed his eyebrows and flipped onto his back, eyes still closed as he drifted lazily through the air with his hands behind his head. He was close to home now, and he knew he should land soon so he could change back and sneak in to grab the thermos, but he was enjoying the quiet rush of air in his hair and ears too much to land just yet. Besides, he didn't want to deal with his parents or Jazz at the moment.

A clattering sound, followed by a familiar curse, caught his attention from the relatively quiet neighborhood below. Danny flipped onto his stomach curiously, eyes cracking open to see what the hubbub was about, only to be blasted directly in the face by an ectoblast originating from a familiar orange-clad figure. Jack yelled triumphantly at his successful shot, but the sound was drowned out by the sudden roaring in Danny's ears. The shock of the experience coupled with the searing pain of the blast itself stunned Danny and he found himself falling from the sky, nostrils and eyes filled with searing pain, painful white light filling his vision entirely. Another second passed before he realised he was screaming, and he clutched at his face as he tumbled from the heavens. Which way was up? He couldn't tell, and in a desperate attempt to avoid hitting the ground, he tried turning intangible. No luck--his powers were shorting out. His skin hissed with steam from the strange blast and suddenly felt like it was crawling. His limbs trembled with sudden adrenaline as all his instincts told him to flee.

A sudden lurch in his gut and a familiar stretching, squashing feeling alerted Danny to the fact that he was being captured in the very thermos he had been going home to pick up. The confusion and pain he felt mixed with a sudden, intense feeling of dread when he realised he had been caught in his moment of unawareness by none other than his parents.

Just great.


	3. 3

The darkened lab hummed quietly to itself as wisps of vapor drifted lazily from vents and pipes, the only light present originating from the glowing containment pod on the far wall. The lab may have been asleep, but the figure within was far from resting, and its awful red eyes scanned the gloom restlessly. What had once been Dan was now something else. The proportions were wrong, the colors were off, the aura was oppressive and sickly--it was like a devil wore his skin. Long, elvish ears replaced the smaller, more rounded ears he used to have, and his long white hair floated freely like a corona surrounding his skull. With every breath, his ribs could be seen faintly as shadows contrasting the light pouring from his core, and when his mouth opened the liquid boiled.

Lights flickered on somewhere in the distance, illuminating the opposite end of the lab. Dan's eyes narrowed into venomous slits as Vlad sauntered into view, making a deliberately slow check of his equipment and side experiments, all the while keeping an eye on his most dangerous prisoner and smirking. Minutes passed achingly slowly, and Dan gritted his teeth in barely suppressed rage as Vlad tapped a password character by character into a keypad with a ponderous click... click... click. Finally, Vlad's half-lidded, heavily bagged eyes flicked lazily to stare directly into Dan's own, and he approached the chamber.

Vlad... The word hissed from parted jaws along with slow moving bubbles, and the murderous intent lurking behind it would have terrified a lesser man. Vlad, however, was unfazed; this was his creation, both in the sense that Dan was partially him, and in the sense that he was the one who had caused all the rather... concerning changes to his ectoplasmic form. He brushed his hand gently along the outside of the chamber, grinning as Dan's hair flared into a flaming tower of rage on top of his head.

"Hush," Vlad crooned, his sick grin widening. "You'll be freed soon enough, don't worry. You have a purpose. I didn't create you only for scientific advancement, you know. You have all of Danny's power that was denied to me because of my imperfect bond. You hold the secret to making me the most powerful ghost this world will ever know, more powerful than Pariah Dark, more powerful than the Master of Time, more powerful than even Danny will become!" He turned suddenly and looked over a screen with a mess of charts and data scattered across it thoughtfully, seeming to be happy with what was there. "Just two more weeks," he whispered. "Then we can take whatever we want from this world."

Dan growled animalistically and the lights in the lab flickered.

*

Danny's face throbbed painfully, and he was reminded just how different pain felt as a ghost. Instead of heat and the rush of blood, the wounds always felt icy and kind of crawly. Still hurt pretty bad, though, and Danny groaned as the pain overwhelmed his senses. Why did it have to be the face? And more importantly, what exactly had happened? How long had he been unconscious? Minutes? Hours? Days? He blinked his eyes open blearily, the bright overhead lights making him squint in pain. His eyes usually were the first to heal whenever he got hit in the face, but they were still very sensitive. A gentle pat-down of his head and the subsequent realization that his hands had come away green with ectoplasm revealed that he still had quite a way to go before he was healed. Great. As his eyes finally adjusted to the brightness of the room, he got a better look around, and was shocked to find out that he was... at home. His parents' lab and its familiar chaos and disarray greeted him through a wavering green ecto-shield.

It took Danny a long moment to register exactly what that meant, but when it sunk in, his already icy blood ran cold. He swayed upright into a sitting position, wincing as he caught sight of his reflection in a shiny glass case nearby. The ectoplasm had dried into a dark green crust covering most of his face, but the rest was still covered electric green burns oozing ectoplasm and steaming slightly as they healed. He hoped it would heal fully, otherwise he would have a lot of explaining to do next time he turned human again.

If he turned human again, that is.

The thought made his arms go weak and brought clammy perspiration to his skin. His parents had every intention of dissecting Phantom, and since they believed he was nothing more than a scrap of consciousness attached to an ectoplasmic core, they wouldn't hesitate to go through with it. Danny trembled at the thought of the dissection table, but trembled even more when he considered telling them the truth about being half-ghost. What if they didn't believe him? What if they thought he was a monster? What if they didn't care, and dissected him anyway? Danny covered his mouth with his hand and ignored the sharp pain as he shivered some more. There's no time for this, Fenton! He scolded himself internally. Don't worry about what could happen, just get out of here.

Danny steeled himself and rose swaying to his feet. He noticed almost immediately a camera pointed at him from outside the anti-ecto box he was in, and crossed 'turn human and walk out of the shield' off his list. He didn't dare expose his identity unless absolutely necessary.

Light footsteps on the stairs caught his attention and he turned as his mom walked down the stairs, fully dressed in her teal jumpsuit, goggles and hood up. Danny stared at her in tense anticipation as she approached, unsure what to say, unsure what to do. Heavier, lumbering footsteps soon followed suit, and before Danny knew it, both his parents were preparing equipment on either side of him in the lab.

"Uh... Hey," Danny said weakly. "Can you guys let me out of here? I think you have the wrong guy. The Wisconsin Ghost is the one you want. You know, the ugly one." He joked halfheartedly.

Jack whirled around, holding some absurd contraption with wires poking out of it haphazardly. "No can do, ghost boy. We've got some tests to run on you. Aren't you excited, Maddie?" He bellowed. Maddie nodded quickly from her spot across the lab.

"Catching this 'Danny Phantom' character was the best stroke of luck we've had in years," she laughed, snapping latex gloves over the pair she was already wearing. "We never get the chance to test our inventions on ecto entities of this high a level. Oh, isn't it wonderful, Jack?" Jack yelled something in agreement but Danny stopped listening.

Danny felt his heart pounding in his chest, and faintly he thought about how weird that was in his ghost form. What do I do? He wondered. Danny tentatively touched the cube surrounding him and flinched as it shocked him painfully. He grasped his faintly smoking hand and hissed in distaste, cursing his own stupidity and cursing the lack of awareness that caused him to get caught. His eyes darted around the room, desperately searching for some kind of escape, when suddenly a thought struck him. Jazz! She would help him escape, if only she knew he was down here! He looked to the stairs hopefully, but a sudden thought made his heart skip a beat. This was the weekend Jazz was going on an early college visit with her friends. She wasn't here to save him this time.

A sudden pronounced click caught his attention and Danny spun, watching as a machine approached the cube. Danny tuned back into his parents' conversation just in time to hear Maddie say "Specter Subjugator: trial one, begin."

"Wait! I-I have something to tell you!" Danny cried, backing into the far corner away from the machine in panic. "Stop! Listen to me!" He wailed, but the machine's roar overpowered his voice. Desperately, he looked for any means of escape, but the only thing he could think to do was turn human again and reveal himself to his parents. He tried to calm his nerves before dumping his biggest secret out into the open, but before he had the chance, the machine's nozzle connected with the side of the cube, and a heavy purple gas filtered in. Danny held his breath for as long as he could, but soon he was forced to breathe, and he coughed painfully as the air entered his lungs. His vision went blurry and his eyes stung painfully. What was this supposed to do, again? He thought weakly. Something about making ghosts tame? It can't be that bad, right?

Wrong. Danny's whole body tensed with sudden, inescapable agony. He tore at his chest, feeling like his lungs were going to explode, and wondered vaguely if he was dying again. He tried to cry out but no sound escaped his lips, and he fell in a heap onto the cement floor. Slowly, the gas cleared, and the spots faded from his vision, but the pain remained. Danny gasped like a dying fish as a new feeling assaulted his body. His ghost core hummed quickly, agonizingly, like a second heartbeat in his chest. Cold fire laced its way through his veins, escaping as crackles of white lightning from his fingertips, eyes, mouth, and nostrils, and he finally was able to cry out as air re-entered his lungs. The humming in his chest grew stronger, and he began to feel something building up within him. His mind went blank as all his thoughts turned to one overpowering need to move.

The hum grew to a roar as Danny began to lift off the floor, still screaming and clutching his head. The lightning intensified, colliding against the green ectoshield with harsh crackles, and the lights in the lab flickered. The Fentons could be heard yelling faintly, but their shouts of alarm and excitement were drowned out by the overwhelming light and noise emanating from the tiny form hovering in the middle of the lab. With a resounding fzzzt the shield broke, the lightbulbs popped, and the Fentons were blown back in a rush of wind. Danny shot through the roof like an intangible bullet from a gun and soared upwards at a speed fast enough to cause a sonic boom, completely overwhelmed by the power humming in every inch of his form.

Far, far above the clouds, he spun wildly with his arms out, slowing gently before tipping downwards into a nosedive and blasting above the town at a speed far greater than one he had ever reached before. White light poured from his mouth and eyes as he rocketed faster than the wind, going wherever his muddled thoughts took him. The wind tore at his face as he whipped closer to the ground. Car alarms blared as he swerved between them, narrowly missing collisions. To an outside observer, he appeared as a white and green blur leaving trails of crackling light behind in a rush of noise and speed.

He felt free.

Suddenly the humming of his core changed pitch, and his conscious mind took hold again. Wait, Danny's confused mind squawked, this is too much! He lost control of his wild flight and clipped the edge of a building, sending him spinning like a rocket gone off course. He was launched high above the town before crashing down into the park, tearing a huge tract into the earth. Bumping and rolling through the rough earth, he finally came to a shuddering stop. Nearby civilians screamed, and Danny understood why when he caught sight of his reflection in the nearby lake. He was glowing so brightly that he was nearly unrecognizable, and was surrounded by a crackling white and green aura that sent off sparks that seared the ground.

The humming, buzzing, roaring sensation overwhelmed his senses like a swarm of insects, and his consciousness swam under the pressure of his core. He stood shakily among the withering grass and disrupted picnics, and like a shooting star lifted off into the sky. Far below, Amity Park was spread out in a blurry phosphorescent haze to his newly enhanced eyes, with electric flashes of color illuminating ectoplasmic entities like neon under a blacklight. Strange... he hummed. I've never seen the world like this before.

A brighter spot blazed its way towards him and Danny slowed, passing through the cloud layer before stopping midair to confront whatever was making its way towards him. A hundred yards or so away, the familiar greasy head of Johnny 13 poked its way up and above the clouds, motorcycle and Shadow appearing a second later. "Hey! Punk!" Johnny squawked. "I don't know who you are or what your deal is, but you just about wrecked my bike with your show-offish "joy flying", and you interrupted my date! What gives, huh?" he made to come closer, but after getting a closer look at Danny and his overwhelming presence, he motioned for his Shadow to stay back. He squinted in disbelief for a moment before finally recognizing Danny through the harsh glow. "No way... The ghost kid? What the hell happened to you?" His voice fell to a shocked whisper.

Danny meant to try and explain what had happened back at the lab, but his thoughts were so muddled that it was all he could do to keep his eyes fully focused on Johnny. Before he realized it, he had raised a limp, white-shrouded hand to gesture in Johnny's general direction, and released possibly the most powerful ectoblast the world had ever known. Johnny had seen it coming, however, and the blast--at least seven or eight feet in diameter, and a bright, awful green-white color that shrieked and howled upon release--missed him by mere inches. His motorcycle roared as he and Shadow dived beneath the clouds in a desperate attempt to hide, but when Johnny looked back in fear of pursuit, he was shocked to see the tiny boy falling slowly from the sky and wrapped in a dimmer, smokier aura. Johnny paused to watch the descent in a state of disturbed fascination. Danny shook his head halfway down to earth again, and ever so gently his flight changed from straight down to a gentle, meandering line in the general direction of Sam's house. Johnny narrowed his eyes. Whatever that had been, it wasn't anything originating from the Ghost Zone. Only one other source could be responsible for this. With a sudden, biting anger, he revved his motorcycle and decided to pay Fentonworks a visit.

*

Sam was jolted from the twisted world of her latest choice in literature by a dull thud on her window. Glancing out, she was shocked to see the familiar form of Phantom clutching his head before remembering he could phase and passing sloppily through the window. He fell in a heap on her carpet, smoking faintly and dripping pure white ectoplasm from his eyes, mouth, ears, and nose. Sam leaped from her bed and ran to him in shock. "Danny! Oh my god," she flipped his limp form onto his back and fumbled desperately for the first aid kit under her bed. Despite all the blood, he had no obvious wound anywhere, and she had never seen ectoplasm this color before. Her heart caught in her throat as he coughed weakly and closed his eyes. With trembling fingers, she called Tucker's cell, and was relieved when he picked up immediately.

"Tucker, it's Danny, something's wrong," she hissed. "I need you to get over here ASAP. He's hurt bad and I don't know what's wrong with him. Please." Tucker started to ask a number of frantic questions but Sam hung up on him without listening. She pulled some shirts from her hamper and tried to mop up some of the strange ectoplasm, thinking the wounds might be hidden under all the gore, but she cried out in pain when her fingers came in contact with it. It was like sticking her hand in liquid nitrogen--so, so cold--and she realized that Danny had felt unusually cold when she flipped him over, too. Usually he was just chilly, but when she tentatively touched his arm, he felt different. Like ice.

"Danny," Sam whispered, her heart pounding. This wasn't like the usual ghost fighting injuries Danny had sustained over the past few months. This was worse, much, much worse. When it came down to it, they were all just kids in way over their heads, and Sam feared that one day hers and Tucker's improvised medical treatments just wouldn't cut it. She knew all too well just how little they knew about Danny's physiology, and she had an awful feeling that it might be what ended up killing him for good.

He may have regenerative capabilities, but even those couldn't cut it when the teen had so many enemies on every side.


	4. 4

(Note—I realized there's a bit of a continuity error after the argument, where time gets wonky and doesn't make sense. I forgot a whole segment where Jazz packs for her trip and warns Danny to be careful while she's gone. Danny's capture should take place when he goes out later that afternoon, not right after the fight. Sorry! I have no clue how to edit my old chapters so this is what we get) ,)

4

Danny's head swam as flashes of light and dark mingled painfully in his mind. Strange shapes and voices filtered through the haze, chilling and unintelligible. He couldn't tell how long he had been floating in this space. Had it been minutes? Days? Years? A gentle sensation began to pull him from the swirling chaos and into a slowly lightening gray. A trembling hand caressed his hair; another slowly entwined and released his fingers. Sound followed shortly after light, and the gentle clicking of gears filled Danny's senses.

He stirred slightly; his eyes were open, but he couldn't see.

"Danny?" Tucker's voice called out, and the hand grasping his tightened. He groaned foggily as all the aches and pains across his body reminded him of their presence.

"Danny!" Sam stopped gently stroking his hair and gripped his shoulder tightly, shaking him. Danny grumbled. Sam and Tucker let out relieved laughs, choked and tight, glad to have gotten a response.

With his free hand, Danny pawed at the thick bandages covering his face and winced as his eyes burned. "Guys...? What's going on?"

"We could ask the same of you, young one." A third voice, deep and wise, countered. Clockwork snapped his fingers and Danny felt himself be lifted gently into a pile of what felt like giant beanbags. "You gave your friends quite the scare."

Danny searched his foggy mind for the memories of what happened, but all he could remember was a purple haze and a feeling like a heartbeat in his whole body. A roaring noise and white light filled his senses, but gave no hint as to what occurred.

"I... I'm not sure," he murmured. "I don't really remember."

Tucker let out a sound of dismay. "What do you mean you don't remember?! I showed up at Sam's place to find you bleeding weird white ectoplasm all over her floor and shaking! We couldn't even touch you, it was so cold. We had to transport you in the thermos! Not cool, dude."

Sam chimed in too, her worry replaced with anger. "You scared the shit out of us, Danny! We thought that was it." Danny could feel the weight behind her words, the 'what if you died' that always lurked beneath the surface.

He cringed. He hated making his friends worry, but he really had no clue what had happened. He remembered flying out on patrol over Amity and enjoying the breeze, but after that things became hazy. The pieces of his memory that he could recall were unpleasant at best, and he had a feeling they would only get worse as he remembered them. His bruises seemed to share that sentiment.

"I think now would be a good time to remind you that Daniel is hurt, and that lectures can wait until later." Clockwork mused from across the room. Sam sighed loudly, but it sounded like agreement. Tucker was quiet, gently rubbing Danny's hand in his own as if to chase some of the perpetual cold out of it.

"What's wrong with my eyes?" Danny croaked, touching the bandages nervously once more with his free hand. They felt like they were crawling, like his small cuts felt when they healed, but on a bigger scale. He could feel wisps of vapor escaping his bandages and frowned.

"Your eyes were badly damaged. They'll reform, but it will take time. You're lucky your core is so powerful; you would likely be permanently blind if you were a normal ghost. Your friends were wise to bring you here. The ambient ectoplasm will speed the healing dramatically." Clockwork explained. Danny's breath hitched in his throat as it sunk in that he could have been permanently disabled, never to fight ghosts again. How would he have explained things to his parents? He tried to squash the growing panic and took deep breaths.

An image of himself as Phantom beating ghosts with a walking stick flitted across his mind. Cujo as a service dog soon followed, and Danny had to hold back a smirk. His panic faded as quickly as it had arrived. My sense of humor is fucked, he realized.

Sam stood up and walked a few paces away. "I'm gonna call Jazz," she explained. "She'll be pissed if we keep her out of the loop on this one." Sam sounded disgruntled about talking to Jazz, but her sense of responsibility outweighed her anger. Her voice blended into the quiet background noise of Clockworks tower as she started explaining.

"Incredible that she gets cell service in the Ghost Zone," Tucker mused. "Must have one hell of a cell plan." Danny snorted, glad to hear Tucker settling back into his usual routine of cracking jokes at any opportunity.

"I'm sorry I worried you guys," Danny said truthfully. "I wish I had some kind of explanation for what happened, but it's like there's a fog covering everything. All I remember is one minute I was going on patrol, and the next minute I..." Danny trailed off, a hint of a memory nagging at his brain. "Wait, how long have I been here?!" He sat up suddenly, feeling panicked. How would he explain his absence to his parents? What if the Foleys and the Mansons grounded Sam and Tuck again? What if Amity needed him?

Tucker gently pushed Danny back down into the soft pillows. "Relax, dude. It's only been, like, half a day. And Clockwork said he had done something weird that made it so we would get back home at about the same time we left." Clockwork hummed in affirmative from across the room. "Besides, you need time to get better. Your eyes aren't the only thing that isn't doing too good."

Something about the way Tucker said that last bit held a lot of significance. Danny could still feel a slight tremble in Tuck's hands as he had leaned him back into the pillows. His gut twisted with guilt. He had really fucked up this time, and Sam and Tuck were suffering for it.

Danny's eyes itched. He wanted to take off the bandages, prove he was alright so they wouldn't need to worry. Sam asked Tucker a question, and while he was distracted Danny began unwinding his face.

The bandages caught on old, dried ectoplasm, tugging painfully at his skin. Flakes of it fell all around him and he felt queasy from the thought of it. Slowly, the gray-white seascape of his vision faded and was replaced with ever more dazzling lights and colors. Everything blurred around him as tears cleared the remaining gunk from his eyes, but he could see, and that was good. His vision was still horribly blurred and his eyes stung in the light, but with each passing second it became clearer.

Sam let out a squawk of dismay and crammed her phone into Tucker's hands, rushing over when she saw what Danny had done. Jazz's voice was muffled and confused through the empty end of the phone.

"Dumbass! Why did you take those off?" Sam growled, holding his face in her hands and gently turning it every which way to see if it was damaged. Her eyes held a look of panic that sent chills down his spine. Danny squirmed in her grip and brushed her off.

"Look, I'm fine, see?" He said brushing the dried flakes of his ghostly blood off of his clothing, noting with a sudden shiver that it was a pale greenish white instead of the usual dingy green of dried ectoplasm. His vision had almost returned to normal, and his eyes only throbbed slightly. He hoped Sam and Tucker would be able to relax now. Danny looked around and realized he was right about being in Clockwork's tower, and the beanbag-esque things he was lying on were, in fact, beanbags. Danny didn't question why Clockwork had them. Clockwork himself was sitting about twenty feet away, monitoring the timelines.

"You're not fine, Danny! Look at your eyes!" Sam snapped.

"Would if I could," he deadpanned.

Sam let out a huff of irritation and dug in her bag for a small, bat-shaped mirror. She flipped it open and let Danny peer into it.

Danny let out a hiss of surprise, touching the skin around his eyes gently.

His eyes, previously a solid, toxic green, had regrown entirely different. The whites of his eyes had been replaced with a green so deep it was almost black, and his irises had become spirals of toxic lime that swirled slowly and dizzyingly out towards his eyelids. His skin was bruised and raw, healing slowly, but looked awful. He appeared more dead than usual, if that was even possible.

Tucker caught a glimpse of Danny's new look from a few feet away, where he was desperately trying to calm Jazz down after she had panicked when Sam dropped the phone. His eyebrows practically shot off his head in surprise and he volleyed the phone back to Sam, eliciting another shout from Jazz.

"Woah, woah, woah--" Tucker began. "That is not what eyes are supposed to look like," he squeaked.

"No shit, Tuck!" Danny replied, panic rising in his voice. "Clockwork...?! We need some help!"

Danny turned to look at Clockwork, but as he did, he began to notice his vision was changing still. It had bit-by-bit returned over the last few minutes, finally reaching its normal state, but now it was crossing that threshold into a new realm entirely. The colors around him were becoming increasingly more saturated, casting the world in strange, psychedelic hues. Reds, and oranges faded until all that was left were varying shades of blue, purple, yellow, and green. When he finally locked his eyes on Clockwork, the old ghost appeared as a searing shape in his vision, burning brightly green and yellow against the dark background. A haunting, otherworldly aura surrounded Clockwork in a color that Danny had no words to describe, curling around him and originating from somewhere in his chest. Danny could see Clockwork tilt his head curiously at his shocked expression, but the old ghost's look of concern was altered by the disconcerting colors and shapes swirling around him, transforming it instead into a haunted mask that sent Danny's tired muscles trembling.

"Danny? What's wrong?" Sam cried out, but he was afraid to look at her. Clockwork floated over and Danny involuntarily flinched.

"Daniel," the older ghost murmured, shrinking into his child form and looking Danny in the eyes. "I need you to relax. It appears something very rare has happened, and I need to explain some things to you." He put a gentle hand on Danny's shoulder, and the small halfa began to slow his breathing, nodding shakily.

"Good, good. I can assure you, all is as it should be. This is not an injury, but instead a new power; a gift, if you will. Have I ever explained resonant cores to you?" Clockwork questioned. Danny shook his head. "Ah. I see."

"Every ghost's core resonates at a specific frequency. It's very rare that two ghost cores would resonate at the same frequency, but it's not unheard of, especially if both ghosts have similar obsessions. Take Johnny and his shadow, for example: their cores have harmony, and as a result they have a unique bond unlike any other. When cores resonate together, a variety of things can happen. The resonant cores can, in incredibly rare occasions, combine into one entity or even destroy each other. More commonly, however, the two cores coexist and swap knowledge. The weaker of the two typically benefits the most from the sharing of knowledge, and it can result in increased strength. Pariah Dark was the result of two mighty ghosts combining when they discovered the resonant frequency of their cores. It can lead to immeasurable power."

Clockwork slowly faded into his adult form, backing up to float a few feet away from the three teenagers huddled on the floor. "This is nothing new in the Ghost Zone, however, and does a poor job explaining the strange way you healed. No, to explain your newfound vision, a small history lesson is in order. One pertaining to the origin of the Ghost Zone itself."

Danny furrowed his brow. His vision, though jarring at first, was starting to show him the locations of ghosts far away, visible as hazy dots of varying brightness through the walls. When he glanced back to Clockwork, he could see the gears and springs whirring inside him, as well as a bright shape that could only have been... His core.

"The Ghost Zone is much more complex than humans believe. It appears on the surface as an alternate dimension housing ghosts and spectres, but in reality, the Ghost Zone itself is nothing more than a ghost like you or like me."

"And like you, Daniel, its core obsession is to protect."

Around him, Danny could feel the Ghost Zone hum.


End file.
